RSC The Constant Wife review - A sharp summery delight on Stratford stage

​What a lovely play for a summer evening: bright, light, funny and refreshing.​

Many recent RSC productions have emphasised spectacle and impact, full of grand visions and directorial flourishes. This is quite different, entirely unfussy and unshowy, trusting the text and the cast to bring all the necessary colour. It almost feels like a throwback: the staging is straightforward, and the simple things are done excellently.

Somerset Maugham’s play, written in 1926, has been adapted here by Laura Wade, a multiple award-winner. But this is no crass attempt to modernise the original: it is hard to distinguish Wade’s voice from Maugham’s, and it remains a play about a very well-to-do bunch of people living in a very nice part of London in the 1920s. Cut-glass accents and fine manners abound; yet beneath the civilised veneer lurks beastliness of various kinds.

The constant wife of the title is Constance, who seems to enjoy a most desirable existence: happy in her home, happy in her career, happy with her husband. She gives every impression of sailing through life entirely unbuffetted by its winds and waves, perhaps by dint of pretending they don’t exist. So her husband appears to get away with serial philandering; her mother’s frequent admonishments tend to go by unchallenged, as do her sister’s more perceptive criticisms. There is a lot of comedy in all this. The truth however is that Constance knows and feels far more than she initially lets on, with subtly explosive results.

Constance is played by Rose Leslie, perhaps best known through her roles in Game of Thrones, the BBC submarine-based thriller Vigil and most recently the BBC series Miss Austen. Her Constance is a picture of airy grace, but has a core of titanium. What seems at first like passivity and credulity is revealed as shrewdness and wisdom. Her edges appear blunter than those of her family members, but her wit and acuity prove far sharper. On this evidence, Leslie should do more comedy: she radiates relaxed intelligence.

Constance’s mother, Mrs Culver, is a classic comedy character, a matriarch whose every utterance drips with outrageous opinion and bulletproof confidence. Her view of men is low, but entirely forgiving: they are fundamentally inadequate beings, so nothing is ever really their fault. Kate Burton inhabits the role with relish, almost every line greeted by the audience’s laughter. Luke Norris is every bit the dashing and appalling cad as Constance’s husband John, Amy Morgan as Constance’s sister is dryly despairing in the way only bruised romantics can be. Raj Bajaj is a joy as Constance’s guileless ‘other man’, Bernard, while Mark Meadows comes close stealing the show as the butler Bentley, all compassionate competence with more than a sprinkle of flair. Jamie Cullum has written the music, which reflects and shapes the mood, glittery piano decorating murkier tones. It is a triumph too for its director Tamara Harvey, who is also co-artistic director of the RSC, shows what can be achieved when a director gets out of the way and lets everyone shine.

A constant delight, with bite.

Until August 2. Call 01789 331111 or visit rsc.org.uk to book.